


In What Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

by Annakovsky



Category: Daily Show RPF, Fake News, Pundit RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-24
Updated: 2006-10-24
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:21:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annakovsky/pseuds/Annakovsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a little bit of a relief that the camera's gone, so Stephen can drop the correspondent character, like the relief of changing out of uncomfortable work clothes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In What Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place immediately after Responsible Drinking, the segment Colbert and Carell did where they got Carell really drunk and filmed it. Thanks to Kyra Cullinan for betaing.  
> **Disclaimer:** Blah blah, this is a work of fiction, and as such is neither true nor profitable. Any similarity to the actual people depicted is both awesome and completely coincidental.

Brian, who's been running the camera, looks at Steve for a long moment when Stephen tells him to pack up and go home. Steve's semi-passed out, half-lying back in the booth with his feet up and his shoulder digging into Stephen's side. He smells like booze and sweat, and there are empty glasses all over the table.

"Is he going to be okay?" Brian says.

Stephen rubs the back of his neck. "Yeah," he says. "Don't worry about it, I've got him. Good work tonight."

Brian shrugs and unhooks the camera from its tripod.

"Hey," Stephen says. "Get a shot of us as you leave, okay?"

Brian puts the camera up on his shoulder and obediently starts backing out. Steve's chewing on a toothpick, his eyes closed, and making a weird humming noise under his breath.

Stephen waves at the camera. "Bye-bye! Wave bye-bye, Steve." Steve waves, sort of, and then Brian's out of sight.

"That was great," Stephen says to Steve. "That's going to be some fantastic footage for the segment."

"Forthewhat?" Steve says, and he slumps farther down, so his head bumps against Stephen's shoulder, then down his chest, and ends up resting on Stephen's leg. Stephen jiggles his leg up and down and Steve's head bounces. "Stopit," Steve mutters. It's a little bit of a relief that the camera's gone, so Stephen can drop the correspondent character, like the relief of changing out of uncomfortable work clothes. Steve's head is heavy on his leg, and his face looks odd upside down, his mouth strangely inverted.

"How do you feel?" Stephen says.

"What?" Steve says.

"How are you feeling?"

"I feel *great*," Steve says. Or Stephen thinks that's what he said. Steve's gotten to the point where it's a little hard to decipher what he's saying.

"You ready to go home?"

Steve says something that's tough to make out, but definitely ends with the word "home."

"What was that?" Stephen says.

"I am home," Steve says. Or possibly, "Your mom."

"No, you're not," Stephen says, and starts hauling Steve back up to a sitting position.

Steve groans. "Leggo of me." But he lets Stephen push him upright, and then scoot him out of the booth.

"You," Stephen says, as he pulls Steve's arm around his shoulders, "are really, really, amazingly drunk."

Steve starts giggling. "Little bit," he says, and Stephen puts his arm around Steve's back, and he's somehow walking him out of the bar. Steve's a warm heavy weight against his side, and Steve's shirt is only half buttoned up and his tie is God knows where, and as they start to walk, Steve takes a sharp, nauseated breath that doesn't bode well.

"You gonna throw up?" Stephen asks as they hit the door, and Steve shakes his head emphatically.

"I," Steve says, and Stephen might just be getting a contact high from the alcohol content of his breath, "am not gonna barf. I have waaaaaaay too much, too much, you know, not-barfing -- I'm waaaay too good at not barfing."

"I bet you are," Stephen says. The night air is cool on the back of his neck, and the moon is really bright and clear, and Steve catches his foot on the sidewalk and almost takes them both down.

"Whoa," Stephen says, catching him, and they steady themselves against each other. "Okay?" Stephen says, and Steve doesn't respond. "Okay," Stephen says. "Almost there."

They finally get up to Stephen's crappy blue Honda, and Stephen tries to arrange Steve in such a way that Stephen can unlock the door and get him in. Steve's face somehow ends up smushed into Stephen's neck, Steve leaning on him heavily, and as Stephen gets the key into the lock, he realizes that Steve's kissing his neck.

"Hey Steve," he says, and Steve nuzzles his face into the skin above Stephen's collar. "Steve!" he says again, but Steve doesn't stop. "What are you doing?"

"You are a sexy, sexy man," Steve mumbles into Stephen's neck, and his breath tickles. Stephen feels it all down his spine. "You are sexy like Antonio Banderas."

Stephen is beginning to think maybe this piece on binge drinking was not the great idea it had seemed. "Believe me, I know," he says, trying not to laugh.

"If I had to have sex with a guy," Steve says. "I would totally bone you. I mean it."

"Oh, thanks!" Stephen says. "That's really kind of you to say." He's just about maneuvered the car door open, but with Steve holding onto him, it's really tough. He tries to prop Steve against the car, which works, except for how Steve won't let go of him.

"I love you, man," Steve says, and one hand is on Stephen's chest, and Steve's face is looking increasingly unhappy, for no good reason Stephen can see.

"Yeah, I love you too," Stephen says.

"Yeah," Steve says, and he sighs and rests his head against Stephen's shoulder. Stephen can feel him breathing, in and out, and Steve's hair is all rumpled and sticking out against Stephen's face, and Stephen doesn't know what's going on. He gives Steve a minute, and kind of pats his back a little bit, and hopes Steve isn't going to cry or anything.

Stephen has a view of the bar past Steve's shoulder; the parking lot's mostly empty, except for the bouncer, smoking outside the door and being pretty obvious about watching them. A woman in stilettos walks outside alone, adjusting her coat. A few minutes later, two guys leave who look barely out of college, wearing polo shirts and khakis. Behind them is a couple with their arms around each other, the man's arm snaking under the woman's coat. Steve's still leaning into Stephen's body, and Stephen hopes he hasn't fallen asleep.

"Okay," Stephen says, quiet. "Let's get in the car." Steve doesn't do anything, so Stephen shakes him a little bit.

"Nooooooooooooooooooooo," Steve says, in his Even Stevphen voice, but he lets Stephen put him in the passenger seat. Steve looks really pale and internal, the way people look when they're really trying to keep their stomach contents inside their bodies, and Stephen has a bad feeling about this. He rustles around in the back to find the towels he'd put in earlier that day, and puts them on the floor of the car under Steve's feet.

"Okay?" he says. "Open the window if you need to."

"What?" Steve says, his eyes more than half-closed.

"If you're going to throw up," Stephen says, slowly and clearly. "Roll down the window."

"I'm not gonna throw up," Steve says.

"I know," Stephen says. "But roll down the window if you need to."

"I don't need to," Steve says.

"I know," Stephen says. "Just make sure you roll down… never mind." He reaches for Steve's seatbelt, and leans across him to buckle it. As he does, his forearm rests on Steve's shoulder, and he feels Steve sigh.

Steve's quiet on the way back to New Jersey, just fiddles with the radio for awhile before he leans his head against the window and closes his eyes. When Stephen glances over, the streetlights are flickering over his face, pale in the darkness. The radio station goes to commercials and Steve jerks upright, swaying slightly in his seat.

"You okay?" Stephen says. The white minivan in front of them changes lanes. Steve makes a weird noise, and then throws up all over the closed window.

"Steve!" Stephen says. Steve groans. The sour smell of vomit fills the car, and when Stephen looks over, Steve's dinner is dripping down the window. "I told you to roll down the window!"

Steve wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, and burps a little, like he might throw up again. "Whoops," he says. He's somehow managed to keep almost all the puke off himself and on the window and the floor, which is sort of remarkable.

"Oh my God," Stephen mutters, and takes the next exit. He rolls down the window to try to get some fresh air into the car, even though it's freezing, but when he looks over, Steve's doing the same thing. "Steve, don't!" Stephen says, but it's too late, and the vomity window is disappearing into the window mechanism in the door. Stephen's mechanic will be so pleased. He turns in under the bright glare of a Shell station and parks the car.

When Stephen opens Steve's door and starts trying to roll the window back up again so he can clean it, Steve groans pathetically. "You gonna throw up again?" Stephen asks.

"No," Steve says, and shakes his head back and forth. He's pale and there's sweat beading on his forehead.

"Okay," Stephen says, and grabs one of the less vomit-y towels off the floor to try to wipe off the window.

Steve mumbles something.

"What's that?" Stephen asks, trying to hold his breath as he wipes chunks off the glass.

"My mouth tastes like ass," Steve says, just slightly more intelligibly.

"I bet," Stephen says. The towel's already too disgusting to keep using, and he looks at the others scattered around Steve's feet, gauging if any of them are remotely clean. "You could go wash it out in the bathroom."

"What?" Steve says.

"The bathroom," Stephen says, dropping the used towel to the asphalt. "Go wash your mouth out." He has to pull Steve up out of the car and push him in the right direction, but Steve gets going, which actually gives Stephen enough space to be able to wipe the car out a little more effectively.

He manages to get it as clean as he possibly can, which isn't very, but he's at a Shell station in New Jersey, so. The puke has definitely gotten into the door, but there's nothing he can really do about that. At least he's wiped off the window, mostly, and the floor. He gingerly picks up the disgusting vomit towels off the asphalt and tosses them in the trashcan, and looks around for Steve. Who, now that he thinks about it, has been in the bathroom a really long time.

When he pushes open the flimsy wooden men's room door, next to the air pump, Steve's leaning over the sink, rinsing out his mouth. He looks kind of yellow-green under the buzz of the fluorescent lights, like he fits in with the grime of the bathroom. The floor's concrete, and toilet paper has unrolled and clumps damply under the sink.

Stephen shuts the door and leans back against it, his hand still on the doorknob. "Feel better?" he asks.

"Yes," Steve says, and brings more water up to his mouth.

"You been doing that this whole time?" Stephen says.

"Yes," Steve says again. He's also splashed water on his face -- a bead of it is about to drip off his nose.

"Okay," Stephen says. "That's probably enough then." But Steve stays leaning over the sink, drinking water out of his cupped hand. "Okay," Stephen says again, and puts his hand on Steve's shoulder to start to steer him out of the bathroom.

Steve straightens up and starts to sway a little bit, and grabs Stephen's elbow to steady himself. Their faces are really close together. "Sorryboutyourcar," Steve says, more or less. He puts his hands on Stephen's shoulders and looks at him, a drunken, unfocused look. "I think," Steve says, "that I am going to kiss you now."

"Um, all right," Stephen says, and for a split second as Steve leans in and kisses the corner of Stephen's mouth, Stephen wishes the camera were here, because boy, would this be a good bit for the segment.

Steve's lips are kind of loose and slack, but Stephen turns his head into the kiss automatically anyway, because that's how he was trained. Yes-And is the first rule of improv, which means you always agree with what the other person does, no matter what it is. That's how you build anything onstage, how you find out what's going to happen next, you have to always say yes. And he met Steve on a stage, Steve sitting on the edge of it, kicking one heel against its side, looking at Stephen like he hadn't decided yet what he made of him. Steve's mouth tastes like water, and his hand's clammy on the back of Stephen's neck.

It's not the first time he's kissed a guy -- he's kissed Paul about a thousand times -- and it's not even the first time he's kissed Steve (they've worked together for a long time, there was a sketch, there's always a sketch). But it is the first time he's kissed a guy when nobody was watching, in a Shell station bathroom at two in the morning. Steve's tongue slides over his, and Steve's nose is bumping his cheek, and he's got his hand in Steve's hair automatically, it's all automatic, Steve'll be really embarrassed when he sees this clip tomorrow at the office, the clip, there's no clip, it's just them, the two of them, Steve pushing him back against the door, the doorknob bumping into Stephen's hip, their knees colliding, and nobody watching at all.

Stephen puts his hands against Steve's chest and pushes, gently, until they're not kissing anymore and nobody's legs are touching, and Steve's hands drop back to his sides, empty. Steve blinks slowly, his mouth still a little open. The faucet's dripping, beating time out. Drip. Drip.

"So," Stephen says, taking his hands off Steve's chest. Now they're not touching at all, they're just two guys in a bathroom, one drunk and one who should know better. Take it again from the top. Scene: a gas station bathroom. A sober correspondent enters. "Um. We should get you home."

"What?" Steve says. He's deflating quietly, a helium balloon two days after a party ended.

"Home," Stephen says. He fumbles for the doorknob, has to take a step back to open it. He's not looking at Steve. "Nancy's waiting."

When he turns around, Steve's just standing there, swaying, and finally Stephen has to put Steve's arm around his shoulders again to haul him back to the car. Steve's walking with his eyes closed.

When the car finally pulls up at Steve's place, Steve's passed out in the passenger seat, his head lolling against his own shoulder. His face looks different when he's sleeping, really relaxed, quiet. Stephen hates to wake him, but he does, and when he passes him off to Nancy, she doesn't look thrilled about babysitting her wasted husband at three in the morning, but hey, he's a professional and so is she. All in a day's work.

When Nancy shuts the door, Stephen stands there for a second on their front steps, shoves his hands into his pockets before he ambles back to the car. Driving back to his place, the windows still down to cut the smell, the rushing air cold on his cheeks, the car feels empty.

The segment goes really well when they air it, and that pleased satisfaction of a successful bit is probably why Stephen feels sort of warm inside when he thinks about it later. Or something.


End file.
